Moo

There’s nothing cuter than a new baby cow. There are a ton of them on our drive home from Cosmic Dog and the gang and I love watching them toddle around the hills.

Kieran: “Look – Baby cow!”

Drew: (in true female fashion) “aaawwwhhh! Is so cute!”

Me: “it makes me never want to eat a hamburger again.”

Kieran: “Hamburgers are just meat mom. Not cow.”

Me: “We’ve had this conversation before, remember? Hamburger is cow.”

Kieran: “I’m not going to eat hamburgers anymore. What’s that called?”

Me: “A vegetarian. Vegetarians eat no meat. Vegans eat no meat, no eggs, no milk.”

Kieran: “NO milk? I LOVE milk. I don’t want to be that thing you just said, but I do want to be a vegetarian.”

Me: (Trying to not act too excited) “That would be fine if that’s what you want. It’s something you can grow into if it makes you happy. (Nice tone, right? Not too pushy, not too dogmatic?)

Kieran: “If you’d like to be a vegetarian too, you can do it with me.”

Me: “Awesome.”

A great chat right before our parenting group with Rebecca on Vegetarianism and the family. Can’t wait for Tuesday night.

The world can start again.

I’ve finished Dharma Punks by Noah Levine. Man – it’s been a long, long time since a book has sucked me in the way this one did. I have a huge stack of books that I’m dying to catch up on and so when I bumped into Michelle H on Thursday and she said “Oh, I noticed you’re reading The Gradual Awakening by Stevine Levine for book club. I brought this book by his son for you – he went to my school.” – I thought that I probably shouldn’t borrow the book. It would just end up sitting on my big guilt pile of to-be-reads. But, that book had caught my attention before, so mixed with a great review from Michelle, I gladly borrowed. Then, I opened the front page and was hooked. I read all last night, not because his writing was stellar, but because I was totally absorbed in Noah’s story of how the dharma quite literally saved his life. Somehow, the craziness of his life really resonated in my own and I just had to see how it ended.

It ended with me sitting on the (closed) toilet seat while monitoring Drew’s bath because I quite literally couldn’t wait until later to finish the last chapter. Drew up to her chin in bubbles singing happy tunes – me on the throne, tears streaming down my cheeks. Drew was naturally concerned why I was crying and all I could say was, “Mommy’s reading a really good book.”  She looked a little confused and then said, “OK, mommy has red eyes.” and went back to her bubbles. She gets it. She’s a book hound too.

Falling in love

At the risk of sounding like a self-interested, walking advertisement – I’ve fallen in love with Jollene’s Cosmic Rhythms Class. I finally made it to her class and I enjoyed it so much that it’s going to be a top priority for me.

Bare feet, rhythmic tribal dance, good friends and letting loose – that’s what every yogi needs to really feel free. Seriously, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t need to let their hair down and let their body go. I’m feeling a little blissed out today!

Typically, I don’t like fusion classes. I really don’t like generic name classes, even though I used them at my studio. I would rather know exactly what I’m going into, and I always want to go to the straight-up yoga classes. There’s something though, about the rhythmic dance, that is so healing and freeing. Your body has the chance to search for it’s own movement, it’s own pattern, it’s own release. Pulling prana through movement is the real deal and gets those chakras humming.

Through my dripping sweat, I feel like I dumped years of repression onto the beautiful bamboo floor today. Ahhh.

Time to redeem myself?

In high school, I was that moody chick dressed in black or vintage thrift-store clothes and wouldn’t be caught dead in a cheerleaders outfit. I was anything but perky back then and had quite a feminist streak. I had to change my attitude slightly when my good friend Marlise who was not the cheer type, joined the squad and loaned those girls some integrity. Marlise was the smartest, most together person I knew in high school and she was a little bit nerdy around the edges – in a good way. She rocked on the cheer squad. She also taught me one of my first lessons about doing your own thing and not defining yourself. Still, the little devil in me just couldn’t handle those caddy, perky girls and I have to confess that when I took photos for the yearbook, I laid down on the gym floor and shot up, adding ten pounds and an unflattering view of those cheer-spankies and whatever was under that tacky skirt. And now, here’s my sincere and official apology:

“I am so sorry cheer-girls for intentionally immortalizing you in less-than-ideal light. When you look at your yearbook and cringe at your thighs… just know that it’s an optical illusion created by my wide angle lense and a bad angle. My sincerest apologies for using my high school photo expertise for evil. Will you please forgive me, come to my yoga class, and I promise to take care of you? I will even add a “woo-hoo” to class just for you if you like.”

Something tells me though, just as I’ve outgrown my evil ways, you may have outgrown your need for rhyming phrases, random shout outs and overhead kicks.

Not me though! In fact, over the years I’ve come to realize that I could have been a fabulous cheerleader. My dormant high school talents really went to waste. Well, I’ve outgrown my shyness, I’m very supportive, might even act frivolous and dare I say it? – I could even be a little bit perky if coerced. Just ask my kids. I don’t even want to tell you how fabulous my split kicks are after years of yoga and repressed cheer-leading talent.

And then – I saw this, but my tech-challenged mind can’t figure out how to post it large enough to view!:

The Shamanic Cheerleaders are the pep squad for the Divine in everyone. go team!

The Shamanic Cheerleaders! GET OUT! It’s the perfect way for me to redeem myself. Cheering for a good cause. My favorite is the “Be Here Now” cheer and the hilarious manifesto. Click on the photo, go to the website and check out the girls bios. The girls: Satori, Crescendo, Shakti-khan, Rapture, Divine, Flow, and After Chakra, are full of talent and the unexpected. Now that’s what I call a cheerleader! I’m planning to leave my 3-kids and run off to the city to join the squad. But, I have one big problem. I just can’t decide what my what my Shamanic Cheerleader name should be. Any help out there?